I remember the shock of realizing how insignificant my world was. I was six. I learned my parents were divorcing. I baffled at how everyone around me continued as if nothing had happened. A girl celebrated a birthday in class. Her mom brought food. We sang. They smiled. Someone placed a perfect cupcake in my shattered hand. I held it. Baffled. I didn’t understand how celebrations could continue as my world fell apart.
This may sound dramatic. To children, however, parents are our world. We see ourselves reflected not just in them, but in the relationship between them. When the relationship breaks up, so can their sense of self and a sense of their world.
Today, even, I observe many of us moving forward despite the shatteredness we feel. Between covid, National unrest, international uncertainty, climate disasters, school challenges, work challenges, do we even have the time to make meaning? Meaning gives us a sense of who we are in the world. We don’t usually make meaning of change while it is in-process.
Grief and change are inseparable. We grieve change. Grief changes us. Hopefully, we hold. We grow. We love.
If anyone knows that sometimes words just aren’t enough, it’s play therapists. That’s the whole point, right? Toys: words; Language: play. Children’s play speaks to us through metaphor. They make sense and meaning out of the world through the process. They don’t even need words. This is especially true with grief and trauma. They play and they make meaning. Even in the midst of tragedy, the can find pockets of time for play … a lifeline.
***
Words just won’t do right now. I don’t have toys. But I have images from moments that come in and out of focus in my mind. I’ll lay them out and move them around like toys. I’ll wander the vignettes in the landscape of my mind and play.
Omi’s niece came by the reception at Oma’s memorial. “I saw her obituary and hoped you would be here.” She told me she found some of my letters to her late mother, my great aunt. She’d like to keep in touch. Both of us, I believe, longing to connect with people who loved the ones we lost. Aunt Beth and Omi loved one another. They stayed close even after Omi divorced Aunt Beth’s husband. Aunt Beth wrote me every year. I wrote her more after Omi died.
***
I noticed a basket of plants, decorated with two dragonflies, sent from my in-laws. I remembered that 14 years ago, Omi and my husband’s grandfather died within 24 hours of one another. Omi’s death, on the East Coast, was drawn out and expected. Grandpa’s death, on the West Coast, was sudden and unexpected. We were new parents. We managed to attend both services. Grief upon grief.
***
After standing for prayers in the ash garden, the family proceeded through the church to leave. “I can’t go,” I told my mom. “I don’t know when I’ll get to come back.” We turned around. Instead of standing, we sat on the bench. The two of us prayed for Oma. We cried. We talked to her. We touched the urn before they enclosed it. We blew kisses to the woman who held both of us in her womb. I was but an egg in my mother’s infant body. An insignificant cluster of cells.
***
I checked my phone and noticed I did not hear, as expected, from a loved one about their doctor appointment. That didn’t bode well. They knew about the memorial. I knew they wouldn’t hesitate to share good news. I wondered, briefly if I could extend my trip and pay a visit. But, I was needed back home.
***
When I finally returned to the hotel and got in bed to read, a hole opened in my chest. I crawled into the darkness and ugly cried for the first time since hearing of Oma’s death. Sometimes, “closure,” like arms wrapped in a complete circle around us, opens us to the pain that waits in the wings of our heart.
Turns out, I was right. The next day, I learned that doctor’s appointment did not go well. I was at the airport. We were filled with the regret of not seeing one another on this trip. I could have driven to you this morning, they said. There will be another time, I hoped.
***
I feel the loss of Oma. The loss of time stolen by COVID. Before that, the loss of time taken by overworking. The loss of health in loved ones. The loss of lives around us. The loss of the world we thought we knew. Grief upon grief.
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I hold it.
***
Now that I am home, I hold my grief even as I holding my family together in these most-demanding times.
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Oh.
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That’s what Oma did.
***
She held us together.
She and her sister.
Even as some parents divorced and our families fractured, because of them, we had Kiawah. We had Lake Murray.
She held us together.
***
I could use her holding now.
She and Omi held us. Even as my parents, their children, split. They didn’t. They held on to their friendship. Their friendship was a steady rock to me and my brother. No matter where we moved, we had their homes to hold us.
I could use their holding now.
***
I hold my grief even as I hold us together.
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Oh.
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I held them together too.
***
Or rather, love did.
Love holds.
It’s 12:15 AM. I don’t want to sleep. I don’t want to keep waking up to this new reality. It takes a while for me to integrate such losses. To not have to re-remember the loss upon waking. To accept I can never go back in time and have one more moment with her in this physical realm. One more night falling asleep in her bed. One more morning waking up to her percolator.
It’s 12:15 AM. I just realized it is now the 20th anniversary of 9/11.
***
Grief upon grief.
***
It’s OK if words won’t do.
It’s OK to crawl into the holes we feel.
It’s OK to cry.
Perhaps we are still grieving the loss of the world we once knew. The world we thought we knew.
Grief upon grief.
***
Grief changes us. Hopefully, we hold. We grow. We love.
Hopefully, love holds.
It does when we let it.